Cameron unveils compassionate bid

Another step forward?

I was not able to attend the launch of this latest initiative due to other commitments.

There has been some critiscism that all this "change" stuff is going too far. I disagree. the next election is some time off and the scale of the task needed to convince the public we have changed is pretty immense. Any opportunity or action we can take to reinforce that change in the minds of those who take little interest in politics (the public) has to be a good thing.

I just hope we do not get a "Mission Statement"

There is an excellent debate on this going on at Tim Montgomerie's Conservative Home site.

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_...

The Daily Politics

The Daily Politics ran a poll closing hot seat for each of the Lib Dem leadership candidates yesterday.

Quite a lot of squirm value for those who like watching politicians suffer. Click here to see it.

Hughes squirmed over his lies (sorry misleading statements!).

Huhne squirmed over his nine houses and investments in a mining company.

The Old Statesman Ming told us he believed that the fact that his consitutuents in Scotland had relatives in England made him qualified to vote on distinctly English issues in Westminster. Baffling!

From a Tory perspective I am not sure it matters which of this lot now wins.

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/pro...

Conservatives believe Mothers should stay at home?

I am not convinced by the argument that the Conservatives have argued that Mothershould stay at home and not work. I certainly never have.

I am sure I have read that there is some evidence that children raised by their parents in the early years have a slightly better chance of being succesful at school. However, I am no longer sure how it is at all possible for parents to stay at home. House prices, taxes etc etc have made this a difficult path to follow. Couple that with the soaring cost of childcare and many Mothers I have met have a tough choice to decide whether it is financially worth their while going out to work once all the cost of doing so have been deducted. I do however agree that we should stop designing a one size fits all style of child care and instead use child care to support the types of lives families want to live.

Read more at www.conservatives.com/t...

No10 'has confidence in Jowell'

Oh dear - If I were her I would be very worried.

Read more at www.epolitix.com/EN/New...

Prince Charles and Lady Di to marry

Oh no!

25 years today they did that "whatever love is" interview!

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/onthisda...

Mayor is suspended over Nazi jibe

However lunatic his policies there must be a part of all politicians that secretly admires the resilience of Red Ken.

The Standard's Board should be abolished but equally Livingstone should have apologised for the deeply personal remarks he made. He may dislike the Evening Standard but you should not go around comparing reporters on the paper who happen to be Jewish as Nazi camp guards.Still 2 weeks without him in charge sounds bliss. Just a shame it will take longer than that to reverse some of his more lunatic ideas.

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/eng...

PM slams 'policy-light' Lib Dem contenders

To be fair to the Lib Dems I am not too sure that having a debate on policy suits them right now. They have had a pretty dreadful period (by election aside). I think their priority has been to get someone, anyone, as their leader rather than worrying as to whether he will lead them left or right or whether he wants higher tax, lower tax, more wars. less wars etc.

Read more at www.epolitix.com/EN/New...

Kingston Congestion Charge

Many people thought this might happen. Once you introduce a congestion charge where do you stop the congestion charge?

Now it appears that Ken Livingstone is intending to put in place a congestion zone in Kingston - a key town centre.The ruling Lib Dem administration have a dislike for the car and it will therefore be interesting to see how they respond to this.

Read more at www.timesonline.co.uk/a...

Silly Lib Dem leaflet

I have been shown a pretty silly Lib Dem newspaper that has just gone out in Kingston.

Apparently Kingston Council has been given the Thumbs Up. Funny then that it does not mention that residents, when surveyed, do not believe that Kingston is better now than it was in 2002 and that the satisfaction rate with services might have rise but it is still well below what it was in 2002.

On the back page they pretend that the Lib Dem tax rises have been less than the Conservatives. The last time the Conservatives controlled Kingston Council was 1994. The period they are talking about was when there was no overall control. The last two budgets we actually voted against but that would not make such a good piece of propaganda I suppose. You would have thought that after all the recent negative publicity, and their emergence as the “really nasty party”, they would back off and try a bit of positive campaigning about what they are going to do for Kingston for the next four years were they to win the elections in May. Still the funny thing about their graphs is that they have demonstrated that under their rule Council tax has risen by over 30%!

Apparently the Lib Dems are claiming the credit for getting Chessington Community College rebuilt. Funny then that when Government announced this money the Lib Dem spokesman on Kingston Council said in the Surrey Comet that she was “surprised” and “didn’t expect it”. On her blog she called it a “windfall”.

According to their leaflet I am against the merger of my old school with Coombe Girl’s. The fact is I am not against it but I am against changing the name. You can see the letter I wrote to the local papers here. I was not alone because another letter also appeared.

Still the Lib Dem motto has always been “never let the truth get in the way of a good story”. I am sure we have much more of this rubbish to come.

Looking forward

Last week was a bit of a mess. Apart from the vandalism to the car I also faced someone reversing into my drive way and hitting the back of the already damaged car and demolishing my wall. My cooker broke down on Sunday halfway through cooking lunch so had to then dash to my parents in Worcester park to finish it. This week promises to start much better.

Railings Considered After Deaths In River (from Surrey Comet)

I am pleased this has finally come to fruition.

What concerns me is how long these things take to be implemented. It was last July that I first discussed this and called for the Councils neighbourhood committee to look at safety measures. Yet we are only just getting this report and this is calling for conultants to look at what could be installed.

Why does a Council have to take so long to act?

Read more at www.surreycomet.co.uk/n...

£60 rise in council tax bills - Kingston highest in London

This is taken from this evenings Evening Standard.

Interesting that the Lib Dem Executive member quoted blames the Government for the high tax rise. Richmond got the same as us, as always, and yet they look to be freezing their Council Tax.

They have had plenty in their reserves to enable them to do this. Seems just damn good financial planning on their part; and of course they are Conservative controlled!

Mindless morons or just where our Country is heading?

I sometimes wonder about the Borough in which I am living and bringing up my children.

The picture shows the state of my car following a bout of vandalism in Berrylands. Two doors, the back and two rear wings are ruined and it appears an almost total re-spray is required. 25 cars in my road were daubed with paint stripper. The damage is not just financial but includes a stream of residents who now worry about this Borough and whether this is the same place they moved to. But maybe the concern is wider than just this Borough? Should we be worried about the growing lack of regard, by some individuals, for their fellow man. We all put up with low level anti social behaviour because many people recognise that they often did similar things when they were kids. But I do not believe that the type of vandalism I have witnessed is anything like that which we did. Or maybe I am just getting older; maybe I am becoming the proverbial “grumpy old man” before my time? Maybe the problem is me and not those who cause distress and expense to others? What do you feel about it?

The Lib Dems would do well to remember history as this article from The Times shows

Does life really go in circles?

"I CANNOT SAY my eye was drawn, on the morning of March 30, 1979, to a small report in one corner of the front page of the Daily Mirror,.......The Liberals had captured Liverpool Edge Hill in a by-election. Edge Hill had been a comfortably held Labour seat.

The result surprised commentators. The Liberal Party was in a dreadful mess. Its former leader had been facing charges for conspiracy to murder. Yet here it was in Liverpool, bouncing back with almost 13,000 votes and a 32 per cent swing from Labour. The Tories came a bad third."

Lib Dem win in Dunfermline

This is a good win for the LD's. They have a knack of pulling these off and they have continued in that vein despite their internal turmoil.

As ever it has next to no influence on the national picture and they might well lose it again at the next General Election.

The Conservatives trailed in fourth and shows what needs to be done in Scotland for us to show we are on the way back to power. Still this is probably about as imporant for us as the Cheadle and Romsey by elections were for Labour; not at all!

Read more at www.epolitix.com/EN/New...

American Humour

On his trip to Great Britain, George Bush had a meeting with Queen Elizabeth. He asked her, "How does one manage to run a country so smoothly?"

"That`s easy," she replied, "You surround yourself with intelligent ministers and advisors."

"But how can I tell whether they are intelligent or not?" he inquired.

"You ask them a riddle," she replied, and with that she pressed a button and said, "Would you please send Tony Blair in." When Blair arrived, the Queen said, "I have a riddle for you to answer for me. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was this child ?" Blair replied, "That`s easy. The child was me." "Very good," said the Queen, "You may go, now."

So President Bush went back to Washington and called in his chief of staff, Karl Rove. He said to him, "I have a riddle for you, and the answer is very important. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was this child ?" Rove replied,

"Yes, it is clearly very important that we determine the answer, as no child must be left behind. Can I deliberate on this for a while?"

"Yes," said Bush, "I'll give you four hours to come up with the answer."

So Rove went and called a meeting of the White House Staff, and asked them the riddle. But after much discussion and many suggestions, none of them had a satisfactory answer. So he was quite upset, not knowing what he would tell the President.

As Rove was walking back to the Oval Office, he saw former Secretary of State Colin Powell approaching him. So he said, "Mr. Secretary, can you answer this riddle for me. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was the child?"

"That's easy," said Powell, "The child was me."

"Oh thank you," said Rove, "You may just have saved me my job!" So Rove went in to the Oval Office and said to President Bush, "I think I know the answer to your riddle. The child was Colin Powell!"

"No, you idiot!" shouted Bush, "The child was Tony Blair!"

Cartoons were Published Five Months ago

Extarordinary!

It now appears that the cartoons that have caused all this fuss were first published five months ago.

In Denmark? No.

In Egypt!

What is the principle religion of Egypt?

Read more at freedomforegyptians.blo...

Are you worried for this country and the rights of the free press?

What has happened to our country? Why does our Government slavishly believe that the European press were wrong to publish these cartoons. Is it any wonder that other European Governments have criticised Jack Straw.

I have seen the cartoons and they are no more offensive than Monty Python's The Life of Brian or The infamous Jerry Springer the musical - as shown on the BBC. Should they have led to death threats and the calling for a new wave of terror? In fact I will bet that many of those protesting in London have not actually even seen the cartoons.

I feel worried and disturbed by what I have read and seen. How do you feel?

Read more at opinion.telegraph.co.uk...

Question Time

I have just sat and watched Question Time. Is it me or was it pretty awful? Is this the best we can do? A Coronation street star who wants to be an MP but was not too bad for a first outing, A Welsh First Minister who refused to answer a simple question about whether he supported the war in Iraq and a Lib Dem Leadership candidate who frankly was OK'ish at times but then just like a 'B' rate game show host for the remainder. Maybe Question Time needs a revamp - or is that heresy?

How important is Parliament?

I thought this graphic from todays Times was very interesting. My first thought was that Major's record of attendance was based on the tough time he had over issues of Europe and getting his colleagues to support him. Then you look at Thatcher's record and realise that this is not the case. Could it be contempt or just plain intolerance of Parliament on the part of Blair? Did Blair really go home before the vote on Tuesday or did he just forget how to vote?

Transsexuals 'to get 2 ID cards'

If ID cards is really about national security then how does this help?

I have nothing against those with gender orientation issues but surely the Government needs to decide if their identity is one thing or the other.

I'm no expert in this area but might there be real problems here? Could not a terrorist claim that he is gender challenged ( what a term!) so as to get a second identity card?

Would it not be better to have "two in one" identity cards or is this about gender sensitivity rather than security?

Lots of questions to which I do not have answers.

Thye lose by one and Blair forgets to turn up

Can it really be the case that the Parliamentary Labour party is so badly run that they send the Prime Minister home and then lose a vote by one?

These people are supposed to be running the country.

One presumes the reshuffle we keep hearing about will be happening soon and that Hilary Armstrong (Labour Chief Whip) will be getting the elbow. Not a pleasant woman at the best of times. She was the one put down by Cameron for "crying like a baby" at Prime Ministers questions and was also the architect of the so called modernisation of Local Government. What emerged was a system of Government that puts power in the hands of the few and allows no chance of proper scrutiny of what is happening; much the same as they are trying to do in Parliament.

So well done to the Labour rebels and to both the Conservatives and Lib Dems for bringing about this chastisement to a pretty awful bill.

Incidentally, why were at least 15 Labour MP's campaigning in the by election in Scotland? Do they really think they can spare that many when it comes to votes on controversial issues?